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The language show this year in Olympia made me even more aware of the gift of having more than one language. One of the stand's motto was 'monolingualism can be cured', another 'Speak to the Future' (www.speaktothefuture.org) campaigns to promote the teaching of languages in schools in the UK. Since this September all children in primary schools will be taught a language as the government finally realised that, in a mobile world, a second language is essential for a country's economic development.
The multiple materials available for teaching, the effort and expense involved in learning a foreign language is challenging compared to the facility with which a child learns a language naturally and effortlessly in their home environment. I always remember a beginner adult student in Paris struggling to learn English who told me sadly that his mother was English and he wished she had spoken to him in English so that he wouldn't need to learn it now. When growing up my parents always told me that all languages are useful, I didn't realise how right they were. Sadly, some languages are viewed by the speaker or listener with lower prestige and this can affect the both the listener's and the speaker's motivation to use it.
As Professor Jim Cummins said, (This Place Nurtures My Spirit - Creating Contexts of Empowerment in www.iteachilearn.org/cummins/spirit.html), to reject a child's language is to reject the child' and to respect a child's culture and language is to respect 'who they are and where they come from'. Culture and language are an important part of one's identity, respecting them are the key to a child's confidence and success. Language is how emotions are expressed, there are words and expressions in all languages that loose their emotiveness and true meaning. It is important that all languages and cultures are valued and given equal status.
How to value a child's language at school:
Think back to when you, as a learner, learnt a foreign language, how did it feel? Have you visited a country when you didn't understand the language, what did it feel like when you didn't understand what people were saying? Immerse your students in a new language for a few moments, discuss how it felt. This would help students understand how it feels for a new EAL student. By showing an appreciation of who they are is an acceptance of who they are and is the key to motivation. The key to the success of an EAL student is through the key to their heart, only when you have found the key will they blossom to their full academic potential. It is not how smart the students are or how academic the teaching is but how valued they feel. In this age of constant appraisals this should be taken on board, as one head of EAL stated she stipulated the EAL lessons should be appraised in a different way due to their different nature.
Everyone is talking about differentiation for EAL in whole class teaching, but how do we actually approach it consistently and effectively?
At Across Cultures we have been developing some systematic ways of approaching this in a structured, yet flexible format. In the downloadable plan you'll see a framework to support EAL teachers with planning for content learning alongside language learning. The plan is based about the theme of sea pollution and provides a writing frame for a persuasive text.
This lesson follow a particular format:
Learners are often faced with the challenge of carrying out research for their class project work, and often schools invest heavily into non-fiction readers which can be used for such projects. Non-fiction books are a vehicle for learning all sorts of information about life and the way the world works. These books are also invaluable for helping EAL learners to develop a range of literacy skills, which in contrast to fiction books, require a different type of literacy skill because they use a narrative tone (Lines, 2009).
Including a useful EAL Progress Review and links to different EAL assessment continua
When teaching EAL, assessment procedures need to be in place in order to have a concrete analysis of student starting points.
This area is a minefield! Without other references or expertise to hand, a new teacher often turns to an expert for help… Google! Results popping up on the first page of a search shows the Oxford placement tests on the first page, but are they the answer?